Blog Archives

Meal 6 in week 9! I actually cooked this on Saturday right after the farmers market, having come home with my head full of ideas thanks to the kind folks at North Star Orchard. You see, I was gushing over how pretty the rainbow chard was and how versatile the leafy green is since it’s the best of celery and spinach in one plant, plus, THOSE COLORS. We chatted for a bit about the myriad of ways to use this gem of a plant, and how great is it that farmers take the time to extol the virtues of their vegetables and offer recipe ideas and cooking advice?! Well, a quiche is just one of the ways to use chard, so the second I got home, I set out to make a late breakfast for myself. I like using recipes since I need a good guide when I cook, so I found this one that included a cornmeal and flour crust for the quiche. I replaced the shortening with lard, because lard, and again instead of milk, I used goat’s milk yogurt. Chard replaced the spinach, and I sautéed the chopped stems with spring garlic, garlic scapes, and scallions. Instead of swiss cheese, I used blue cheese fresh from my first Collective Creamery cheese CSA pickup. I cheated a little and just pressed the crust into the pie dish instead of rolling it out, saving myself the trouble of washing the rolling pin and mat, but that worked out just fine since the crust came out nice and crispy, and the dark roasted cornmeal I used kicked the flavor of the whole thing up a notch. On the side are three asparagus spears wrapped in culatello, topped with a bit of Red Cat cheese (because always cheese), and a wee little fried quail egg. The bowl in the back contains fresh strawberries drizzled with our own honey, and I’m not ashamed to say I polished off a whole pint of strawberries in one sitting because they were FANTASTIC. There’s also a mug of non-local (but absolutely necessary) cold brew coffee. I also now have a whole bunch of quiche leftovers, so there’s breakfast for the week!

Still playing catch-up, but here’s One Local Summer week 10! I had originally looked up recipes for Polenta Pizza, and came up with a recipe that had that name, but it much more resembles cornbread pizza than polenta pizza. I figure once you add anything other than water and butter/oil to cornmeal, especially when the extra ingredients are flour and baking powder, it ends up being cornbread and not polenta. Still, for cornbread pizza done in the cast iron skillet, this was pretty decent! I think the blue cheese and chorizo actually worked out well with the cornbread base so it wasn’t a traditional pizza on top of cornbread. The quick jolt near the end of cooking under the broiler was really key to really bubble the cheese on top, and the crust ended up with a nice, crunchy bottom (not burnt, just nicely well-baked). The leftovers are even good!

The recipe came from here (http://www.simplehealthykitchen.com/skillet-margarita-polenta-pizza/) and let’s forgive them for the misspelling of Margherita because even though the recipe was a little misleading, it was still good and cooked up as specified!

Moving right along! I’m a little late posting this (a theme you’ll see as we get into mid and late summer and I just get too busy to blog), but it was definitely made during week 3, I swear! Here we have my sad attempt at an omelette and roasted asparagus. I learned that while I make tasty omelets, they’re not very pretty to behold and probably work better as open face egg creations more than properly flipped and perfect omelets. Presentation is just not as important as the flavor, and I can assure you that this disappeared pretty quickly! Inside the egg are scallions, spring garlic, mushrooms, goat cheese, and spinach. On the side is sliced asparagus, roasted with some salt and olive oil, and then given a little cheesy topping for the last few minutes. You guys, I may never eat asparagus any other way ever again. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great grilled, but roasted? It comes out so much more tender and crisps a little on the edges which is so wonderful. Of course, you can never go wrong with putting cheese on top! I plan on doing this for breakfast a few more times since I still have spinach and goat cheese, but it will probably be more of an unsightly scramble than a nicely plated creation. Did I mention that I’m a lazy cook? Oh, and the coffee, not local, but absolutely necessary for survival.

Husband is at it again for this installment of One Local Summer. It was more like a One Local Fall sort of day – gloomy and rainy – so soup it is! The soup is a chunky potato leek soup since we happened to have all those things on hand and husband is truly the soup master. He somehow manages to make everything work well together in one pot whereas I tend to make disasters that skirt the line between edible and fodder for the garbage disposal. We used up the last of the pretzel rolls from the freezer and paired the roll with some mustard seed gouda made from local milk. Top the whole meal off with a glass of cool cider and we have a filling and warm dinner for an icky day. This may be the last of the meals for 2015 seeing as there was a vacation happening during the time the last three OLS posts went up, but fear not, we’ll be back next year!

Husband has returned home and cooked up this classic summer meal – a pulled pork sandwich. A good part of this one was a long time in the making. The sauerkraut was made months ago, fermented from fresh cabbage in a huge stoneware crock. The pickles were started a month ago and came out as terrific sour pickles. The buns were made last year and pulled from the freezer. The cider in the glass was also made last year and was just kegged and ready to drink this past month. The only thing new on the plate is the pulled pork which cooked up in the crock pot all day with some cider, peppers, onion, vinegar, and tomatoes, and came out DELICIOUS.